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If there was one thing Kyle was big enough to admit, it would be this: he’s not the most observant person in the entire world.
Which was fine, really. He’d never been very inclined to give any fucks about the goings-on of all the people he encountered on a daily basis. He’d always been content simply receiving school gossip from Bebe (without even searching it out, she just always had a piece of news or exclusive rumor on hand at any given moment) and nothing more.
Of course he’d keep close tabs on the few valuable people known to exist in this area of the world (like Tolkien and Butters), and the people who are never not entertaining to hear about (like whatever the hell Tweek and Craig got going on), and the people who happen to fall into both those categories (see: Stan and Kenny).
If there’s another thing Kyle would admit, it would be that the most observant person in the entire world might be Kenny. He’s everywhere, somehow– but not in a gossip-y sort of way, like his social status is dependent on being the little birdie on everyone’s shoulder. No, he’s just always been excellent at remembering the origin of someone’s behavior, be it overt or subtle. The ability is just inherent, innate.
Sometimes Kyle envied him for that. You know when you’re finally made privy to something, and you feel fucking stupid for taking so long to piece it together? Yeah.
Anyways– it didn’t take Kenny-level omniscience to link a simple cause and effect: once Stan turned sixteen and got his license, he spent less time at his house and more time driving around his friends.
It could be brushed off as just fun, anyway. After all, he was the last of them to get his license. By a long shot.
Because, see, in the state of Colorado, the school cut-off date was October first. And he’d been born late in the year after everyone else. No one ever bothered to ask what Stan’s parents had done to get him not one but two grades above where he should’ve been, because by the time everyone realized he was technically in the wrong grade, they’d already spent years as his classmate. Why change that?
(Upon further thought, Kyle theorized that his parents probably had to do with it, too. In fact, in his mind there existed a vivid image of his mom threatening to bring down the entire school board before separating her sweet little boy from his sweet little best friend. She totally would’ve.)
So every school year, Stan always turned a year younger than everyone else. It was simply a fact of life.
This got his license over eighteen months after Kenny got his. Stan found that pretty fucked up– as well as the fact that Butters had somehow technically made the cutoff despite just being a little over a month older than him– and said as much.
While it never mattered to him in elementary school (the way nothing does at that age), it clearly started to eat away at him as everyone collectively got older. Cartman ragged on him for it more often, but he had the mental fortitude to rarely entertain the taunts. But that’s not to say he didn’t complain about it to Kyle and Kenny privately; he absolutely did that quite a few times.
So, whatever. Stan got his license and started volunteering to be everyone’s chauffeur, so what? He’d been anxious for the same freedom his friends had enjoyed for months.
Kyle would’ve bought that if he didn’t know Stan. Or, more importantly, if he hadn’t already been a witness to the long, slow crumbling of the Marsh family. All of South Park was, to some extent. Which was really fucked up.
Towards the very end of freshman year– a few days before Kyle’s fifteenth birthday, actually, yet a few months before Stan’s fourteenth– Stan called up Kyle and asked to sleep over. It being a Friday night, and the winding-down of the school year meant no homework that weekend, Kyle’s parents pleasantly allowed it.
Twenty minutes later Stan arrived at the Broflovski residence just slightly out of breath. As he stepped inside, Kyle habitually surveyed the road; there were no cars zooming away in either direction.
“Uh,” Kyle didn’t know how to ask this politely, and also was very perplexed. “Did you get here on foot, dude?”
Stan nodded, taking his shoes off and discarding them by the door. “It’s a nice day out.”
“But it’s nighttime.”
“You know what I mean, don’t you?” Stan unexpectedly half-snapped. His unwarranted aggression compiled onto the strangeness of everything. “Look, can we play Halo?”
Which was… an odd way to word that question. Fuck if Kyle knows the linguistics behind what makes ‘can we play Halo?’ so much different than the usual ‘want to play Halo?’ but it had to be something.
Like, Stan seemed more desperate to play Halo 2 than usual. Which was kind of odd, because it was years old and nothing about any of it was challenging anymore. After so many millions of hours of gameplay, it required zero brainpower to win.
Kyle considered all this as the two shuffled up to his bedroom and he started up his Xbox. He could’ve very well been overthinking, but he highly doubted it– Stan walked there, he was aggressive for no apparent reason, and he called after dinner, when he’s gone on record many times saying he loves Kyle’s mom’s cooking.
They sat side by side at the foot of Kyle’s bed, simply enduring the opening screens they’ve seen one trillion times (not an exaggeration). Kyle glanced at Stan, who stared down at the carpeted floor almost blankly, aside from the way his brows clearly indicated he was deep in thought.
Kyle waited until they began a round to breach the weird subject. Not caring to stop his glances from lasting a few seconds at a time, he asked: “So why’d you walk here?”
Stan’s character kept moving, but the few tense moments preceding his answer implied something really troubling. “I told you, it’s nice out. And that took long enough, don’t you think? Since it’s almost fucking June?”
Hoping Stan could see it in his peripheral, Kyle shot him a look. It reeked of suspicion, and more judgment than he truly harbored in his mind. “It’s also quarter to nine. If you wanted to hang out, why didn’t you call earlier?”
“Didn’t feel like seeing my parents for the ride.” Whatever he muttered could hardly be called a reply. It wouldn’t have been audible if not for the relative silence in the room and their proximity to one another.
The answer itself wasn’t surprising or unfounded in any way. At the dinner table Kyle had heard plenty of chatter concerning the widening rift between Mr. and Mrs. Marsh. Sometimes it was hypotheses concerning why that rift existed, or what made it worse (rumors of one too many hangovers that interrupted critical household errands). Sometimes it was guesses as to what came next (“I mean, they’ve got two kids they’ll be putting through college soon! Talk about unfortunate timing!”).
Kyle obviously never repeated any of what he heard to anyone, and especially not Stan. It can’t be pleasant to have your parents’ messiness be the talk of the town.
“What, neither of them could take you?” Kyle regarded that as a valid question; based on all the anecdotes he’d heard, it seemed quite rare that both of Stan’s parents were on his case about something. Usually just one or the other, depending on the situation or offense.
“I don’t want to see either of them right now,” Stan hissed, momentarily letting go of the controller with his hand to pinch the bridge of his nose. “Either way, they were both preoccupied with Shelly. She made a way bigger fuss than me.”
At least they were slowly approaching the truth of it. Kyle could tell the vitriol wasn’t aimed at him; rather, it was aimless, and he was simply the only person listening. Knowing that, the vague hostility didn’t faze him. Dealing with it was a rather small price to pay.
“Made a big fuss about what?”
That question felt riskier than it truly was, maybe. Kyle feared saying the wrong thing and making his friend just shut down entirely (not unlikely!), but he was merely asking about something Stan just said two seconds ago.
“Well, that’s the thing,” Stan said, and Kyle abruptly realized just how intentional it was that his friend hadn’t looked away from the screen. “Right after dinner, and right before I called you, my parents told us that they’re separating. Like, once and for all.”
He seemed really calm about it. Too calm, like it was some kind of shock response. It probably was, Kyle realized. That made so much fucking sense– like, no wonder he wanted to play Halo 2. He just needed something to do idly while he worked through shit in his mind.
“Well, what do you think of it?”
The answer was deliberated over for a pretty short moment. Probably because he thought of it while playing Halo 2.
“It’s not like it’s out of the blue. I know you’ve heard shit, I’m not fucking stupid.” A pause. “Like, they were giving me the whole things won’t change and we still love you bullshit, but all I was thinking was that there’s still an opportunity to work things out. They still can, if they try.”
“Yeah, I agree,” Kyle lied, because why the fuck would he argue? That wouldn’t be appropriate at all.
“Figured I’d rather have you hear this from me, personally, than someone else in a few days,” Stan looked over to Kyle for the first time in that entire conversation, and he even cracked a smile. “Like your mom. Or fucking Bebe or something. Jesus.”
Kyle snickered at that, because the mental image of Bebe whispering to Wendy from behind her hand was all too clear.
(The moment of levity allowed him to finally not feel guilty about the flutters which had been in his chest this whole time. Giving any thought to those feelings at a time like this would be highly unwise.)
“I appreciate that,” he said. Which was true. It would’ve been easy for Stan to let this news run its course and then explain, but he instead chose to get the first word in. Plus, he walked to Kyle’s house seeking asylum– a dramatic way to put it, but not inaccurate– and he found it there. In a botched round of Halo 2, no less.
Towards the end of the first quarter of junior year, Stan and Kyle’s english teacher introduced them to the big project– and therefore, the biggest grade– of the semester. (The second quarter hadn’t even begun yet, so she was deemed a bitch for bringing it up so early.)
It was a big research paper about colleges– in which you had to research colleges you’d be potentially interested in attending according to your own preferences. Like how big it was, if it offered programs for the major you wanted, similar shit.
As the teacher droned on, Kyle noticed a soft sound to his left. Sure enough, Stan was rapping nervous fingers in a rapid rhythm. He did so with his right hand, and chewed on the thumbnail of his propped up left hand. He looked straight ahead, though, sending the teacher death glares of the deepest accord.
“Hey,” Kyle leaned over and muttered, “What’s up?”
Stan merely shook his head. Wanting to avoid vocalizing your anxieties in the middle of second period was perfectly reasonable, but Kyle fucking hated the silent treatment. Seriously, even a dismissive promise to tell him later would suffice.
A month ago, the teacher allowed the students to change their seats, claiming it was more for herself because she needed to stop relying on the alphabetical rows they were placed in to learn their names. Kyle and Stan all but scrambled to the back corner in tandem, where a window would mostly obscure the face of whoever sat just next to it.
Stan insisted Kyle take the window seat. He was still new to the whole boyfriend thing and gave some stupid, sappy reason about how nicely the light filtered through Kyle’s curls. In retaliation, Kyle would grab the not-window seat whenever he arrived to class first. Because he liked to see his boyfriend illuminated, too.
Anyways, the back of the class was awesome. Nobody ever really noticed any of the small-scale shenanigans taking place, let alone cared enough to do anything about it. The two used this power of invisibility to move their desks to the middle of the space between them.
Today, in the stuffy air of the classroom, Kyle disrupted Stan’s rhythmic hell and squeezed his hand, hoping it brought some comfort.
The new class schedule, instated the prior year, created an hour-long free period between second and third period. It was exactly how it sounded; students could eat lunch in the cafeteria, or hang out in the gym, or study in the library or meet with teachers to work on class material. Everyone was skeptical prior to its execution, including teachers, but it turned out to be pleasant. It split the day in half really nicely.
Stan had all but reserved he and Kyle a permanent spot at the back of the gym bleachers to eat their lunch together. By the time they settled, many others had scattered about the two sets of rolled-out bleachers, so the gym was layered with constant crowd chatter.
Overwhelming, potentially? Yeah. But it provided the two a space to speak freely, albeit softly. Which was a small price to pay. Their relationship was still a secret to all but Kenny. Because he was good at keeping secrets.
“So,” Kyle sat on the little walking space on the bleacher, his legs dangling in front of him in a kind of silly manner. “What had you all riled up in class?”
Stan sighed, plopping onto the bleacher beside his boyfriend and angling ninety degrees to face him. “Y’know, just the college talk. It all makes you feel so behind, doesn’t it?”
“The paper will be easy to bullshit,” Kyle shrugged and snapped open a water bottle. With one hand he sipped it, and with the other he put a hand on Stan’s knee and traced little circles. “Besides that, we’ve got time. Applications are, like, more than a year away.”
“Where do you wanna go?” Stan asked in an instant, and then immediately backtracked. “Well, not the exact school. Don’t ask me, because I haven’t researched shit. But you want to go far, right?”
“What kind of question is that?” Kyle giggled and took another swig. “Of course I’m getting as far away from here as possible. And you’re coming with me, one way or another.”
“Yeah. One way or another, we’re leaving here and never coming back.”
Stan had a way of finalizing things. He was speaking about the future– uncertain in its very nature, more uncertain than anyone could possibly manage to be about anything else– but the very cadence of his voice shook that foundation. He said that like a prophecy.
He was in better spirits after speaking that into existence. Such wonderful spirits, in fact, that he proposed a little visit to Stark’s Pond after school. Kyle didn’t know who he would be if he refused. A bad boyfriend? Maybe. A fucking idiot? Certainly.
They met up in the parking lot after school and took Stan’s car, because he’d barely received his license a month ago and he definitely drove like it. He made turns so wide it was kind of arrogant, and grinned with the glow of someone finally tasting multiple kinds of freedom. The old station wagon was his alone, because Shelly transferred from community college to a different university just before sophomore year.
To get to the pond they had to pass the street which the Marsh residence stood on. As children, Kyle found it insanely convenient that he could always pick up his best friend on the way to the pretty pond. Now, it served no purpose but to give Stan a moment of pause. Literally. He stopped humming along to his music for a few seconds and even turned his head.
“Everything alright?”
Stan clicked his gaze back into place, his fingers started tapping on the steering wheel. “Yeah. Just thinking a little.”
“Okay,” Kyle replied neutrally. “Good or bad?”
“Little of both,” Stan shrugged. “Uh, sorry for being so distant lately.”
This was genuinely unexpected, and Kyle reacted accordingly. “What are you talking about?”
“…Forget I ever said anything.”
“No, no, don’t do that,” Kyle sat up straighter in his seat. “Were you going to say more?”
Stan glanced out his window and then forward again. “No, I wasn’t.”
Kyle crossed his arms. “I don’t believe that.”
“Fine, then don’t believe me.”
“Jesus, Stan, you’re being so difficult.”
Stan scoffed. “Maybe I wouldn’t be difficult if you weren’t a bitch first.”
“Dude, there’s nothing happening right now!” Kyle’s quip was far louder than intended, and he instantaneously felt the shame of that. So he breathed in, out, and back in again, gathering up as much patience as his arms could hold. Softer, he repeated: “Exactly. There’s nothing happening right now. Which means we have no reason to argue. Okay?”
Stan was lucky to be driving, because it meant his dead stare forward raised marginally less concern than it would have otherwise. He pulled up to the pond, parked more or less a hundred feet away from the little dock, and practically yanked the key out of the starting ignition.
Then Stan leaned over the seat and pulled Kyle into an embrace. He buried his face into the crook of his boyfriend’s neck and held on like they’d both disintegrate into sand and swish unceremoniously to the floor. He mumbled something, unintelligible and shaky.
“Dude, what is it?”
Stan broke away, leaning on his seat tiredly. One of his brown sleeves rose to his eyes and fell again a deeper tint. With the other, he covered his eyes in humiliation.
“I’ve read shit about how divorce is generational,” he muttered, hardly brave enough to say it aloud. “And I– shit, I sounded just like my dad a minute ago. I proved those things right to an embarrassing degree.”
Kyle searched for Stan’s eyes; he had to move the tear-stained sleeve to do it. With one hand he squeezed Stan’s hand, easy and habitual; with the other, he cupped his jaw.
When Kyle spoke, he spoke firmly. He needed Stan to hear every word and commit it to memory.
“Listen. If what I hear about your dad is true, then he’s a fucked-up, alcoholic infidel. The way I see it, the fact that you even recognize who you sound like means you’re way more self aware than he’ll ever be.”
Stan laughed, stale and mostly joyless. Mostly. “You’re too good, you know that?”
Kyle could use that (the little bit of relief that stood against the mostly of everything else) to his advantage, and immediately chose to do so. “You think so? Tell me how.”
“I’ve barely paid you any goddamn mind these last few weeks. I’m so… distracted, and you ignore that. Like you don’t care.” And then he clarified: “You don’t care in the good way, I mean. You don’t mind that.”
“Then I guess it has to be uncovered,” Kyle leaned against his own seat, so they were face-to-face. Only then did their eyes fully meet. “You said you’ve been distant lately. Or you’ve felt like that, at least, but I don’t think so. Does it have anything to do with what you were upset about in class today?”
“Somewhat. That’s part of it. Because it’s like…” Stan huffed, the first vestiges of visible breath appearing in the no-longer heated car. “Once I go to college they’re selling the house, ‘cause they’re only still together to put me and Shelly through college, but we still got a whole year ‘til then.”
“So, what? You want it all to come quicker?” That would be consistent with everything he’s said; leaving here and never coming back.
“That’s the thing, I don’t.” Briefly, Stan pinched the bridge of his nose with his free hand. “You wanna get the fuck out of here as much as I do. But once we leave this stupid goddamn hick town, there’ll be nothing for me to come back to. At all.”
That was the moment that Kyle was made privy to something and felt so fucking stupid for taking so long to piece it together.
It all made too much fucking sense: endure a dreadful but perfectly familiar home, or find freedom from it knowing you’d never be able to return to its normalcy again?
No wonder he wanted to get out, because it’s the only thing he could do to stop the situation from dragging on for a million more years than it already has. No wonder he very nearly stopped just to stare at his house, his unremarkable house, and no wonder he barely went there anymore after getting a car: because no amount of practice leaving it would ever make the final time easier.
No wonder he wanted assurance that they’d be going far together, because who else would he have once he leaves? No wonder he only spoke in ‘we’ and ‘us,’ because he needed that assurance desperately.
Kyle might’ve been privileged enough to never have any faith in the fantasy of the Marshes working things out, but Stan had to cling to it. Purposeful naïvety, like a little freshman. Now it’s completely vanished, though, and he’s left standing in the aftermath.
“You don’t have to go back there tonight,” Kyle said. Nothing he said could ever patch up everything at once, even temporarily. “My parents will let a school night sleepover slide if I explained it to them. ‘Cause they’re sympathetic, you know. They get it.”
“Yeah, I guess so,” Stan sighed, smiling a little. Kyle couldn’t really place why, but then again it’s not like he knew even half the inner machinations of Stan’s mind. Especially not in a time like this.
(Though he chose to believe, maybe selfishly, that it was the thought of a comfortable night spent with his boyfriend in a house guaranteed to be just about the same in a year’s time.)
“Could we stay here a little longer, though?” Stan asked. “The lake is pretty. There are more trees around it than there were when we were little kids.”
“‘Course, dude,” Kyle agreed. “Can we turn the car back on, though? It’s fucking cold out.”
Stan snickered and started it back up again. Besides that, neither made any effort to move from their spots. The most that happened is that Kyle grabbed Stan’s hand again, thinking about how Stan found a bit of peace here. But they weren’t at Kyle’s house, so he had reason to figure that the source of Stan’s peace was never moving from a stressful location to a safe one, but instead something else. Maybe it came from a person, one to play Halo 2 with.